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In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 6:03 pm

by W1AEX

Version 3.4.3 showed up yesterday at the download link shown below. I've spotted some of the new stuff in the setup menus but there are currently no application notes yet on the release. I am sure the developers are working overtime to write out the details of what is new so let's give them some time to get that out. I installed v3.4.3 yesterday, and it converted my 3.4.2 database successfully and everything has been running perfectly. Thank you to all who worked on this release!

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 12:57 pm

by w-u-2-o

Release notes for your convenience

Editorial note: strange that the release notes do not mention 7000DLE support. More importantly, all honor to Chris, W2PA, from whom all of the listed new improvements come from. Chris is a godsend, as he is the first person to take an interest in improving the user interface features of PowerSDR mRX ina LONG time. Thank you, Chris! I have a Hercules Compact controller and that baby works GREAT with the new code. Highly recommended on the basis of cost and form factor if you just want a few knobs and buttons. And the VFO sensitivity control is the cat's meow. I personally like it set up with the fast/slow toggle control.

3.4.3 (2017-11-11)

Improved CTUN mode operation:

A "CTUN Scroll" check box has been added to the Setup-General-Options tab. When this box is checked:

The display scrolls when the VFO gets near the display edges allowing tuning to continue. The VFO cursor stays near the scrolling edge.Frequency changes greater than 500kHz cause a re-centering (e.g. when recalling a memory from a far removed frequency) When this box is unchecked: CTUN behaves as before these CTUN enhancements - VFO tuning stops at the receiver bandwidth edges (e.g. 192kHz edges)Forcing CTUN to turn OFF when selecting Split or MultiRX has been eliminated.

MIDI controller support:

MIDI controller mapping now supports the Behringer CMD Studio 2a. In fact, it may work with all the Behringer controllers now, barring unforseen additional behavior of specific controllers that differs from the currently supported ones (the CMD PL-1, CMD Micro, and now CMD Studio 2a).

Fixed MIDI/CAT VFO manipulations (A>B, B>A, A<>B) so they behave exactly like the corresponding buttons on the console. Previously the CAT versions of these commands only changed frequency and nothing else associated with the VFO (e.g. mode).

Added handling of variable codes coming from wheels in the Hercules Compact controller; it was resulting in digital "backlash."

MIDI VFO sensitivity control:

VFO knob sensitivity (speed) can now be adjusted. In the past, as you turned a MIDI knob (usually one of the big jog wheels), you got one tune step per MIDI wheel or knob MIDI message output. Now you can change the wheel sensitivity by specifying the number of MIDI updates required to produce one frequency step.

Two new up/down controls have been added to the Setup/CAT Control tab next to the "Configure MIDI" button, labeled as ""MIDI Wheel updates/step. These controls set the minimum and maximum number of MIDI wheel updates per frequency step (i.e. maximum and minimum wheel sensitivity, respectively). These two values can then be alternated between using a new MIDI command and mapping as below.

The following three functions and mappings are new:

"Increase wheel rotation per VFO tune step" - increments the number of wheel updates per tuning step, mappable to a button, staring at 1 and increasing by factors of 2 up to a maximum of 32."Decrease wheel rotation per VFO tune step" - decreases the number of wheel updates per tuning step, mappable to a button, starting at the current setting and decreasing by a factor of 2 down to a minimum of 1."VFO Wheel Sensitivity High/Low Toggle" - toggles between the high and low values set in MIDI setup, mappable to a buttonThe typical use for "Toggle" would be as a high/low tuning sensitivity (speed) control. You can zip across a band at high speed, then switch to low speed as you get close to a signal of interest.

All of these settings, combined with the existing Tune Step MIDI settings, should allow a much greater range of tuning "feel" and control than before. Note that the Behringer controllers' jog wheels that enable variable tuning rates continue to work as before and now can be further tailored using these settings.

Disabled audio processing in digital modes:

CFC is now disabled automatically when switching to DIGL or DIGU. This operates in the same way the disabling of other processing functions, such as TX EQ, operates now, in that it simply disables the function in the currently selected transmit profile to ensure that CFC isn't used in digital modes. Note: A better way to handle this, as some are already doing, is to create a transmit profile for digital modes and switch to it before selecting a digital mode.

Miscellaneous:

Modified VHF band stacks to be 5-deep like the others. Eliminated most display scale shifting when going between transmit and receive. Fixed a bug causing a crash when zoomed in past the point where the passband fits in the display. Fixed bugs in split VFO operation when RX2 is on. Fixed a bug resulting in incorrect vertical display scale in transmit under certain circumstances.

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 3:27 pm

by Tony EI7BMB

Thanks Scott. Any idea what "pro latency" does ?

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 4:56 pm

by w-u-2-o

Tony EI7BMB wrote:Thanks Scott. Any idea what "pro latency" does ?

I'm sorry, Tony, I don't see the word "latency" in the release notes, and I didn't see such a setting in the new version. Where did you see that?

Thanks,

Scott

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:35 pm

by Tony EI7BMB

Hi Scott, its on the "hardware config" tab under general . You can select 1,2 or 4

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:54 pm

by W1AEX

Thanks for the release description Scott. When I place my cursor over the PRO Latency setting on the Hardware Config page a pop-up that says "Packet Re-ordering Latency" shows up. That sounds like it might be a correction for packets that arrive out of sequence, which you've mentioned a few times Scott. That should be welcome to anyone who sees random audio artifacts or anomalies here and there while operating.

73,

Rob W1AEX

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:01 pm

by w-u-2-o

Ah, I believe Rob has broken the code, thanks, Rob! If that's what it is, then I would probably just set it to 3 and be done with it, as that will allow reordering of packets as far as 3 places out of position and the additional latency to do that is just not much more than 1 ms.

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:16 pm

by W1AEX

It appears that the default setting for PRO Latency is "4" which is where I have left it. I have not played around with any of the CTune features that Chris has been working on but I'm looking forward to checking that out very shortly!

73,

Rob

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:38 pm

by Tony EI7BMB

Apologies I misspoke, it is of course 1, 2 or 4

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:51 pm

by w-u-2-o

The default looks good

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 7:07 am

by I4LEC

First of all many thanks for the update, which I did it, even though it should have not been advisable at only less than two weeks away from the CQWW CW.

New features seem to works fine, I mapped three new buttons on the console to take advantages of the tuning enhancements.C tune fixes and scroll feature look also good, unfortunately, as I am using the console 99% of the time in the collapsed mode a C tune left over bug is still there, as when switch from collapse to expand, C tune switches OFF, while it does not do it the other way around.This is not really a big problem, just a note for the next release, instead one bug that was not there is now present, and given the upcoming contest, will force me to come back to the previous version, the three buttons (A>B, B>A, A<>B) that I mapped on the DJ console no longer work when in collapse view, they do work only when on the expand view, this for me is a major problem during the contest, as is something very often used.

Once again, appreciated the effort in keeping this software upto date and frankly, so far, the only one with such number of features.73, Clay

p.s. next week I should receive a brand new Expert 1.5K-FA (with the NXP 1800W module), on which I have been asked to run pre-distortion tests, taking the signal directly out of the available -60dBm tap.

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 3:55 pm

by W2PA

Clay,

Thanks for discovering this bug in the MIDI VFO manipulations when in Collapsed view. It's fixed in the next version. And I'll send you an update to test shortly.

73,Chris, W2PA

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 10:05 am

by devnull

Hi Scott,any idea what this is all about ...

hpsdr_setup_DoNotTX.JPG (59.68 KiB) Viewed 2989 times

73 Hauke (VK1HW)

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 2:05 pm

by w-u-2-o

Checking the "Do Not TX" boxes causes the corresponding transmit antenna selector buttons to be grayed out so that they cannot be accidentally selected for transmit. You can see those grayed out buttons on your example.

It's an additional safety feature. It's not foolproof (and I don't understand why, but I didn't write the code). For instance, you can have two non-transmit rated antennas on ANT2 and ANT3, and if you have ANT2 selected for receive you can still select ANT3 for transmit

73,

Scott

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 9:50 pm

by devnull

Tnx.

Hauke

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:50 pm

by K9RX

Re: Do Not TX.This was a request I had submitted and tested a couple/few weeks back. They added a "RX Ant" on the center box (VFO LOCK etc box). There is a need to be able to switch back and forth between a TX and RX antenna at times ... this is easily done on other rigs (on Yaesu 5K you can turn RX on and off and it automatically goes back to the selected TX antenna if off). BUT since these are ALSO dedicated TX jacks I had asked as a safety measure that the "Do Not TX" be added. I thought I had confirmed that once selected you cannot select TX for that one ... I've not checked Scott's scenario. Additionally, and I don't think its in there, I had asked that the button "RX Ant" be grayed out when a RX (Do Not TX) antenna is NOT selected on the current band to avoid confusion - currently you can still toggle it between TX Ant and RX ant but nothing happens if you haven't done the other work.

LAST: and this is important - BE AWARE that ALL jacks, on the 8000 at least, the 3 for ADC1 and the one for ADC2 are GROUNDED when not in use. This WILL damage any preamps that could well be used on RX arrays. I know - its happened to me. This is a, to me, serious oversight in the design of the relay switching logic by Apache Labs. I've been told that this has been pointed out before but still hasn't been corrected. The only work around I can see since there is no way to automatically know you have a RX antenna or not (externally) and thus be able to use a relay to switch it automatically, is to cut traces on the jacks. I don't know what that will do to the warranty but I am seriously considering it. I'd do it both on the ADC2 jack as well as Ant 3 jack on the 8000 and then run the RX array in to both of these thus allowing for Stereo Diversity as well as single radio ability to switch between the TX and RX antenna.

Gary K9RX

Re: In case you missed it: PowerSDR mRX OpenHPSDR v 3.4.3

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2017 6:17 pm

by w-u-2-o

Hi Gary,

You've got way more antennas than I do, but I recently put up a second antenna, and I find myself switching between the two quite often.

In addition to all of the features you sold the dev's on I would love to see a menu bar addition named "Antenna", right next to Diversity, that bring you directly to the Antenna setup screen. That way you don't have to drill down through Setup > General > Ant/Filters > Antenna to get there.